‘Race’ in psychology: Teaching the subject

Abstract

This article addresses the ways in which the subject of ‘race’ is discussed in psychology and the issues this raises for teaching. It argues that psychological work provides contrary possibilities. On the one hand, it helps to reproduce negative racialized constructions of those constructed as Other (particularly black people). On the other, it allows challenges to such constructions. For example, the ‘race’ and IQ controversy, and the periodic recurrence of racialized hereditarianism, place teachers and students within narratives that both assert and rebut biological racism. The social psychology of prejudice and discrimination at times reifies culturally constructed racial difference and tacitly justifies subtle, cultural or ‘new’ forms of racism, while analyses of racist discourses demystify practices of (de)racialization. Aspects of wider social and institutional context, and different teacher and student positionings in the classroom, create fractures and ambiguities that further complicate the process of teaching the subject of ‘race’.

Keywords:

• Psychology
• IQ
• prejudice
• racism
• discourse
• positionings
• situated knowledges